Three “shaken baby” convictions quashed

Appeal Court judges have quashed the convictions of three people
found guilty of harming or killing children after their lawyers
attacked the theory of “shaken baby syndrome”.
 
Although the judges ruled each shaken baby case depended on its own
facts, the court’s decision may open the way for more than 90 other
convictions to be challenged on the basis of doubts over expert
medical evidence.

Raymond Rock, formerly of Perebrown Avenue, Great Yarmouth,
Norfolk, was convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s daughter Heidi
Smith, aged 13 months, in 1998. He was alleged to have shaken the
child violently, but he insisted she wriggled out of his arms and
fell to the floor.
 
The conviction of Rock, the only one of the four people involved in
the appeal to still be in custody,  was reduced from murder to
manslaughter today by Lord Justice Gage, sitting with Mr Justice
Gross and Mr Justice McFarlane.
 
The judges also overturned his life sentence and imposed a new term
of seven years.  As he has already served almost six years behind
bars, he will be immediately released on parole.
 
Lorraine Harris, 36, formerly of Kingsdale Close, Long Eaton,
Derbyshire, who was jailed for the manslaughter of her
four-month-old son Patrick McGuire in 2000. She said the baby
became ill and stopped breathing after a vaccination. He had a
blood disorder which was only discovered after his death.
 
She has already been released from custody and her conviction was
today overturned as “unsafe”.
 
Alan Cherry, 54, from Birmingham, but who was living in Millwall,
London, when convicted at Birmingham Crown Court in 1995 of the
manslaughter of his girlfriend’s 22-month-old daughter, Sarah
Eburne-Day. He denied shaking her in a fit of temper and claimed
she fell off a stool on which she was standing.
 
Cherry’s conviction was upheld by the Appeal Court.
 
Michael Faulder, 36, formerly of Raby Street, Gateshead, jailed for
two-and-a-half years at Teesside Crown Court in 1999 for causing
grievous bodily harm to a boy aged seven weeks who has since made a
full recovery. Faulder said he accidentally dropped the baby while
trying to put him in his pushchair.  His appeal was allowed and his
conviction quashed.
 
Although the judges ruled each shaken baby case depended on its own
facts, the court’s decision may open the way for more than 90 other
convictions to be challenged on the basis of doubts over expert
medical evidence.